


The Sometimes House

by Routcliffe



Series: Halvbakt: Short Fantasies [7]
Category: Ylvis RPF
Genre: Gen, Haunted Houses, Urban Fantasy, Ylvis Lite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:27:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27383413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Routcliffe/pseuds/Routcliffe
Summary: It’s Hallowe’en, 2018.  There’s a house on the corner where yesterday there was just a vacant lot, and it's filled with terrifying creatures.  Who ya gonna call?  No one who's available, apparently, so Magnus and Calle are just going to have to take care of it themselves.
Relationships: Calle Hellevang Larsen & Magnus Devold
Series: Halvbakt: Short Fantasies [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/687876
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	The Sometimes House

**Author's Note:**

> This is late, for which I apologize, and I even thought of letting it go until next year, but I'm super nervous tonight and needed a distraction. It's kind of set in the middle of something that's about three quarters written.

At first, Mathias thought the lack of sleep was getting to him, like the night he’d been gooned on antihistamines and stared for ten solid minutes at the weird transparent building before realizing it was a construction crane. But no... the October sun had been shining on a vacant lot in Gammelgårdsveien on the north side of Oslo, and as it sank below the level of the rooftops, the spaces the light didn’t touch were suddenly a house.

He’d been alone on the street when it happened. Now a woman walking a couple of dogs came from one direction, and a person with a stroller came from the other, and he glanced from one to the other, trying to gauge their reactions. But they didn’t seem to register that the house was anything unusual. Instead they looked askance at him, the boy standing in the middle of the sidewalk gawping.

He approached the fence. Hologram? His brain seized on the idea with relief. Maybe it was an elaborate high-tech illusion. Maybe it was those two comedians again. A couple of years ago they’d done a video shoot at his previous school. He walked through the front gate of the wrought iron fence that had appeared around the house, dragging a hand against the metal, and it rang softly at his touch. No, definitely not an illusion. He mounted the first of the sagging wooden front steps, hearing it creak, feeling the wood shift ever so slightly beneath him. 

Mathias took his foot off the step, backed down the front walk, and ran. Yes, fine, he was a little spooked, and that had to be allowed. But mostly, he was thinking of who he would call, because he was a pragmatist, and knew better than to do this alone.

***

Twenty minutes later, they were arrayed on the front walk: Hanna, Julie, Sander, Jonas, and Mathias. Mathias had been too agitated to bother with his costume, but they’d been getting ready for a party when Mathias had texted them to come and hammered on their doors, so Hanna was Frøya from _Vikingane_ , Julie was dressed like Harley Quinn with her baseball bat, Sander was Hancock, and Jonas was Fridtjof Nansen. “He’s right,” Julie was saying, craning her neck, “and the only reason I know he’s right is that I remember looking at the burdock growing in this lot last week, wondering if maybe that was where Maja was walking Bamse, that they were both coming home covered in burrs. But... I really didn’t want to go any closer. Didn’t think that was weird until now.”

“Maybe you had the lot wrong,” Jonas offered.

She silenced him with a look, and started up the steps. Then she hesitated, and then stepped down. “I... just don’t think we should.”

“It’s a bad feeling, right?” Mathias agreed.

Jonas shrugged back his fur coat and approached the door. For a moment he too hesitated, but then he straightened his shoulders and knocked. 

Deep in the bowels of the house there was... not a sound, precisely, but a change in the shape of all the other sounds. 

Jonas turned the knob. The door opened with a creak, and he stepped through, beckoning them all into a foyer with scuffed hardwood flooring and ancient, peeling wallpaper. Doors lined the hall, and a staircase led up to a second floor.

“We shouldn’t be here,” said Sander. He hung back until he was the only one on the porch. “I think we should go.”

“You watch too many movies,” Jonas scoffed. He walked further in. “Hello?”

There was a noise, and at the top of the stairs, a pale shape fled. Running footsteps continued overhead, and a door slammed. Elsewhere, there were other noises, a flurry of sighs and creakings and knockings.

“This is really creepy,” Hanna said, with glee. 

“I think we should go,” Sander said again, but he had stepped inside and closed the door.

“It’s on purpose,” Jonas called back. “It has to be. Right now someone is watching us pee our panties and they’re laughing.” He started up the stairs, shouting at the upper floors, “I’m not afraid of you!”

The others exchanged nervous glances, and ran up after him. “Jonas,” Mathias whispered in a high, thin voice that he hoped carried, “ _stop!_ ”

There were more doors upstairs, and Jonas was backing away from one of them. The door was ajar. His mouth was, too. When they reached him, he only pointed. 

The room, dimly lit by a chandelier bulb in a wall sconce, had a neatly made twin bed, a dressing table with a mirror, and a rocking chair. A figure sat in the rocking chair. Its back was to them, but it was clad in rags that smoked and shifted. 

Mathias never knew which one of them made the noise, the choked little gasp, but the figure turned. It looked like a woman of sorts. She stood up, and up, and up, the rags of her clothing swirling around her. Fixing empty, shadowed eyes on them, she opened her mouth. Wisps of black smoke spilled from her lips. “GET OUT.”

They ran down the stairs--Hanna tripped but she stayed upright by clutching the railing--and through the hall, to the front door. It wouldn’t open. The lock worked freely, the door didn’t stick, but it simply wouldn’t budge. But upstairs and downstairs, the other doors were opening, and things were coming out...

***

“Huh,” said Magnus.

Calle had his head down, checking his phone. They should have turned right at the roundabout, but they could still take one of these side streets and still get to the Discovery offices without going too much out of their way. “Hmm?” 

“It’s just, that’s a lot of Mormons.”

Calle looked. The Mormons in question, eight or so, were congregated in front of a large, unkempt looking house on one of the side streets. Calle eyed them, prepared to look away and hurry off if two of them broke ranks, but they seemed to be quite intent on each other, and on the house in front of them. And among them, hell if he knew how, he recognized someone.

He froze, not sure whether to approach, or to grab Magnus and go to the Hallowe’en party and get on with their lives.

The Mormon turned, and made the decision for them. Frowning, he approached. Magnus tugged nervously at Calle’s sleeve, but Calle stood his ground. “Larsen, was it?” He appeared to be a white man of medium height, with a suit and tie and neat short brown hair, and his nametag said “Elder Kirkpatrick.” “A couple of summers ago you asked me if I was a pixie.”

“Calle. Hellevang-Larsen. And you’re...” Calle closed his eyes, and played the voice over in his head. “Officer... Randy?”

“Riddari Arun Randiel,” the elf said, shaking the hand Calle offered. 

“And this is my friend and colleague, Magnus Devold. Magnus, these are dálki officers. Think magical cops.”

“Delighted?” Magnus said, shifting the bag with his costume in it from side to side, eyes darting back and forth between them. 

“Did you two have anything to do with this?”

“I don’t even know what _this_ is,” Calle told him. “If these are disguises, you might want to change them up. That’s how you got our attention.”

“Fewmets,” muttered Randiel, looking indecisive. 

“Should we get out of your way then?” Magnus ventured. 

Randiel pressed his lips together and seemed to think it over. “Did your Ylvis buddies ever tell you about Hallowe’en?”

“That the borders between the worlds grow thin?” Magnus guessed.

“Something like that. It’s our New Year’s Eve, and one of the things we do is renew the spells for the Great Glamour. You do know about the Great Glamour, right?”

“I do,” said Calle. “It’s the set of spells that let the Magifolkene live alongside humans without humans noticing.” He thought a minute. “So when you renew it there’s a gap? That makes so much sense...”

“If you do it right, there’s no gap at all,” Randiel said, sounding irate, “but someone in this rooming house initiated a weird concealment protocol that made the renewal spell glitch out. We folded the interior out of space as soon as we realized, but not before some humans got inside, apparently. And now, of course, the house isn’t covered by the Great Glamour, so whoever _we_ send in just scares them more.”

“So,” Calle said, unable to believe he was saying this, “it sounds like you could use some humans.”

“Actually, Toril suggested that your changeling buddy could probably pass,” Randiel said. “If you’re keen to help, though, I got the impression the last time we met that your call would go over better than mine.”

Calle took out his phone and scrolled through his contacts to Finn’s number. He understood that Vegard’s changeling was still taking the cancellation of his show last year especially hard, so maybe he’d enjoy helping.

Finn picked up on the third ring, sounding ragged and exhausted and not promising at all. “’Lo?”

“Hey, Finn. I’m wondering if you could help us with a, ah, problem.”

“Do I have to get out of this chair?”

“Um... ideally yes. Are you okay?”

“No. A few weeks ago I made a large man very angry.”

“Oh hell, Finn. Is it...?”

“I lost a lot of blood and got a bit of a knock in the head. The doctors told me I’ll be okay, but it’ll be a little while before I’m any help to anyone. I really am sorry.”

“It’s okay. Really it’s okay. I’m sorry you’re hurt. Can I get your brother’s number then?”

“You won’t get Brynjar. He’s still in Svalbard, as far as anyone knows.”

“Svalbard?” Calle shrilled.

“Yeah. Going after some kind of Dark Lord or something. He hasn’t checked in in awhile. I’m starting to worry, to be honest.”

“Holy Christ, Finn, I need to get in touch more often.”

“I know you have your life. But it wouldn’t go amiss, especially these days.”

The dálki officer cleared his throat.

“Understood. I’m sorry, Finn, I have to go. Heal well.”

“Right, your thing. Thanks. Good luck. Happy New-- Wait, happy Hallowe’en.”

The next one Calle called was Bård, but there was no answer. Then Vegard, who answered on the fourth ring. In the background there was muffled music. “Hi hi. You and Magnus close?”

“We got a little bit held up,” Calle explained. “There’s, um. You know magic better than we do. Could you get to Gammelgårdsveien?”

“What, now?”

“Is now not a good time?”

“Tine Jensen is talking to Bård right now.”

“Are you guys in trouble or something?” If they were, Calle thought it was very bad form to take it up with them at the network Hallowe’en party. 

“No. Think _Taskmaster_.”

“What does she want you to do?”

“Ugh! I’ll explain later. Just, I’ve got to get back out there. I’ll see you-- Wait, you’re not, like, in danger, are you?”

“You go deal with the taskmasters,” Calle said. “Magnus and I have got this.”

“Okay. Bye. Wait! Magic?”

“Yeah. I know, don’t trust my eyes, right?”

“More than that, don’t trust the stories, and most of all don’t trust your fears.”

“What _do_ I trust?”

“That they’re people. Treat them like people. Coming! Gottagobye.” The call ended.

“What do you trust?” pressed Magnus.

“That they’re people,” Calle relayed. 

“Not people like you know,” Randiel cautioned. “They’re not like you. Your world is not their world. A lot of them are desperate. Some of them would feast on your entrails as soon as look at you.”

Magnus shot a nervous glance at Calle, but Calle put down the bag with his costume in it and said, “Tell us what to do.”

***

Magnus felt a creeping dread, and the closer he got to the house, the worse it got. “So, the Mormon says they’ll feast on your entrails,” he said, as they climbed the rotten steps, “and this is not only _not_ a deterrent, but...” He let the sentence hang as they stood at the door, waiting.

The Mormon who trailed them to the door was glamoured as a tall brown-skinned man named Elder Smith, but spoke in a contralto voice that came from what Magnus guessed would be around his elbow if they stood side by side. “He’s not a Mormon,” the officer said. “None of us are, and I do take your earlier point, Calle, but tonight of all nights, it’s very difficult to find a group glamour that says ‘stay away’ and not ‘party in the offing.’” The officer blew on one finger, and drew a shape on the door. 

“You two know each other?” said Magnus.

Elder Smith kept drawing. “Forgive me for not shaking your hand, but this glyph needs to be continuous. Toril Standhaftig. Calle and I met briefly, oh, a couple of summers ago.”

“In the Botanical Gardens?” Calle said. 

“Indeed.” She stepped back from the door. Nothing had changed. “Remember,” she said, “be careful and respectful. A lot of them have had bad experiences with humans before, so don’t expect them to roll out the welcome mat.”

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Magnus confessed.

“That’s natural,” Toril said. “I don’t know if either of you can see, but there’s a portal in front of you. Just go on through. When you want to come out, do the knock we showed you.”

Calle set his mouth, and put a hand to the door. It disappeared in. “Are you coming too?” he asked Toril.

“A lot of them haven’t had great experiences with the dálki either,” she said, “and believe me, we already tried. So no.”

Calle took a deep breath, and stepped through the closed door, and vanished. Magnus tried not to think about it too hard, and stepped forward, and whacked his forehead.

“Sorry!” Toril said. “Sorry. Should have given you an idea of the dimensions.”

He had staggered back, the heel of his hand pressed to his forehead. “I’m okay,” he said. “Where’s the top?”

She put a hand there. He made sure he was bending down enough to pass under it. His eyes still told him there was a door there, so he closed them, and even though he was sure he couldn’t boast any magical sight, his perfectly ordinary senses could feel the open space in front of him, and he stepped through.

***

The light was wrong. That was the first thing Calle noticed. There was something dirty about it. The air was utterly still. He’d been outside of Midgard before, on something Finn called the old roads, and felt that stillness, but this was different. Close. Haphazard, almost. It was the Billy bookcase of dimensions, he decided, and someone had built it slightly askew.

There were sounds, lots of them, but he had trouble getting a fix on the direction of them. They echoed endlessly, screams and chatters and running footsteps and something like a wet growl. 

The shock of it had made him forget about Magnus entirely, so when right behind him there was a cry of pain and a disembodied hand appeared in midair, Calle screamed and jumped back. A few seconds later, Magnus was standing in the foyer next to him, rubbing his forehead. “That was weird,” the taller man said, and in his voice there was a slightly plaintive note. 

“Look on the bright side,” Calle said. With Magnus there, he had the courage to venture down the hallway, peeking in an open door, surveying the room. It was a living room with faded furniture and a TV in the corner. “This is a lot weirder.”

Coming from the back of the house was a soft _drip… drip… drip_. Calle beckoned to Magnus, and they crept to the doorway. Back to the wall, Calle poked his head around the corner, bracing himself.

There was a kitchen, not terribly modern, fixtures from the seventies or so, shabby but mostly clean, with one exception. On the counter, there was a carton of milk on its side. Its contents puddled on the counter and drooled onto the floor with a steady drip, drip, drip.

Calle let out the breath he'd been holding, and walked into the kitchen, scanning every corner. There was no one there.

Magnus, at his heels, reached over and righted the milk carton, shook it experimentally, and deposited it in the fridge, which was avocado green and so old it opened with a lever. “Are we sure this isn’t just a regular house?” he asked.

“Could be,” Calle said. In the rear of the house there were two doors facing each other. One had to be the outside door. The knob turned but the door didn’t budge. Calle tried the opposite door, which opened with a creak. Shaky-looking wooden stairs led down into darkness, and there were screams and a wet rasping noise. “On the other hand...” He groped for a light switch, and didn’t find one. It was at the top of the stairs, on the other side of the door. He turned it on, peering down into the dim amber light.

“We have to go down there, don’t we?” Magnus said bleakly. 

Calle considered. “I don’t think _you_ should,” he said at last. “It’s a low ceiling and there’s no railing on those stairs. If you whacked your head you could go right down, and there’d be nothing to hold onto.”

Magnus gave him a philosophical nod. “What are _you_ going to do?”

“I’m going to go down very carefully, and if I fall and break something, you’re going to go to the front door and let them know.”

He ended up having to bend nearly double to get down the stairs, which swayed alarmingly under his weight. In the end, he turned around and backed down, sometimes holding onto the steps above him for support. It was not a long flight of stairs--that the basement wasn’t that deep was a big part of the problem--but it took him a long time to descend, and by the end of it he was pouring with sweat.

He straightened up with a sigh of relief--he could feel stray hairs on the top of his head brushing the beams of the ceiling--and looked up at Magnus, who was peering anxiously down, hands on his knees. “I’m good. Don’t you even try that, though.”

“I saw,” said Magnus. “Do you need me to stay here? I thought I heard some noises from upstairs.”

“Check those out, then. Hmm. If we need a code word, let’s go with... citronella.”

“Citronella,” Magnus agreed. “Be safe.”

“You too.”

***

Hanna wept quietly. Her ankle was puffing up where she’d turned it on the stairs, and the combination of pain and fear and anger at herself had started the waterworks. Sander had an arm around her, and she suspected it might be as much for his own comfort as for hers. Julie was sitting cross-legged with the bat on her lap, eyes darting to and fro in the darkness. Mathias was fiddling with his phone, even though all of them had absolutely no bars. Jonas was trying to pierce the darkness with his steely gaze, but his mustache kept detaching.

The basement had low ceilings and a dirt floor. In the light of their phones they’d seen a labyrinthine array of cages that were up on blocks to keep them out of the dirt. The five of them were huddled in a corner, where one line of cages met a wall. They hadn’t wanted to look too hard at what was imprisoned there, but there were sounds echoing around them, skitterings and snufflings and the occasional wail. 

They didn’t have a plan. Once Julie had volunteered to go up and scout a way out, and once Jonas had tried to do it, and once they’d gone together, but every time they stirred from the corner, a high burbling moan had echoed through the room, and something, or things, stirred into motion. The further they’d gone, the louder the sounds had gotten, and something had twitched at the edges of their vision, until all three times they’d retreated back to the corner. They waited for rescue, for morning, for the monsters to finally find them.

A short, sharp noise made them all jump, and Hanna and Mathias let out little shrieks. A rectangle of electric light appeared, and the kids exchanged glances. The door. It was the sound of the basement door, which stuck in its frame. A moment later, lights came on around them, stuttering and so dim that they didn’t dispel the darkness so much as flavour it a little. Low, indistinct sounds passed back and forth. Footsteps echoed on the stairs. The kids drew closer together. The door closed, and they jumped again.

A voice, deep but not so deep as to be uncanny, pitched to soothe, said, “My name is Calle. I’m human. I want to help.”

Julie popped her head up over the cages, and then ducked back down. “I can’t see his ears,” she said apologetically, “but his clothes are normal.” The kids clutched each other. 

“Be careful,” Hanna whispered as the noises swelled around them. 

“He’s gonna be food for that thing.” Sander got to his feet, and turned on the flashlight on his phone. The noises grew more intense, clicks and whispers and a rough, steady scraping noise. Sander shuffled into the dimness, palms out in a gesture of peace, and went to greet the stranger.

***

Magnus watched until Calle was gone from his field of vision. Then he turned away from the basement--the door, hung at an angle, swung shut--and made his way back through the house. On the one hand, he’d seen enough movies to know that splitting up in a haunted house was a terrible idea. On the other, the most dangerous thing he’d seen in the house so far had been that staircase.

The front stairs, thank goodness, were solidly built, and there was no need to duck. The second floor had high ceilings, mouldings around the doorframes, and transoms. If the carpet hadn’t been threadbare, if the hardwood floors hadn’t been scuffed, if the light hadn’t been all wrong and the air curiously flat, it would have been a very nice place. 

He walked to the front of the house, glancing at half-open doors but seeing no one. The front room was a bathroom, shared by the look of things. He walked back down the hallway, this time looking more carefully into the rooms. One was spare, a brass bed with a green steamer trunk at the foot of it and a small desk in the corner, and a rag rug. Another was a teen’s room, clothes draped over every surface, the wall adorned with posters for a band called Soloppgang. Another had a divider through the centre. On the near side were shelves and a matching desk, and two filing cabinets. On the far side, Magnus caught a glimpse of a bed. No... a Plexiglas tank of brackish water, draped with a floral cover. Another room was painted red and had a wrought-iron-framed twin bed, a dressing table with a mirror, and a rocking chair. They were all empty. 

Magnus heard a latch and the creak of hinges, and froze. Slowly, carefully, he drew his head out of the red room. 

Standing in the hallway behind him was a very thin, long-limbed creature with skin the colour of bone. Magnus looked up, and it looked back down at him with fierce red-rimmed eyes, teeth bared in its wide mouth. They were exceptionally bad teeth. “Who. Are. You?”

Magnus gave it his widest smile. “Magnus Devold. Excuse me for intruding. I--” _They’re people. What would I say to a person?_ “Are you all right?”

It stopped looming, and grimaced. “One of the little blighters got my shoulder with her bat, but I’ll live. It’s Hedda we’re worried about.” It eyed him. “You’re not one of them, are you?”

“I’m human,” said Magnus, “but I’m not part of the, ah, group that got stuck in here. I’m supposed to collect them.”

The thing snorted. “Take them! Gods! I understand that they’re probably terrified, but...” It shook its head, and turned away, and Magnus got the idea that he was supposed to follow. “That’s the thing about glamour. You live among humans, you forget how dangerous they are when they’re scared. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound bigoted, we’re just all having a very rough night.” It cocked its head. “Are you one of those, um, what do they call them... Ylvises?”

Magnus swallowed hard and took a moment to tame his face, and said, “I am not an Ylvis, although you might sometimes consider me Ylvis-adjacent.”

It had paused at the one closed door which Magnus had not yet visited, its many-jointed finger on the knob. “Do you have any healing magic?”

“I don’t have any magic at all. But I did do a basic first aid course.”

The thing shook its head. “How do they expect you to do basic first aid without magic? Were you saying _your_ name is Magnus?”

“Yes. Magnus Devold.”

“Oh. Me too. Magnus Eldhaug. At first I thought you were calling me something.” He opened the door on a room full of nightmares. At least, individually they would have been nightmares. Crowded all together, perched desultorily on the edge of Magnus Eldhaug’s very long bed, they just looked tired and sad and worried.

“Another one?” demanded a squat lipless, noseless, yellow-eyed creature. 

“This one’s here to get the others out,” Eldhaug explained.

A void-eyed woman clad in rags of dark smoke stalked up to him, fists clenched. “This is the height of trespass, you know. One glitch, and humans believe they can just walk into someone else’s home, and if we try to stop them, oh, _we’re_ the monsters.”

“It’s partly the time of year,” Magnus told her. “On Hallowe’en it’s something we do for fun.”

Her eyes were still lost in fathomless pits that swallowed all light, but from the expression on her face she was rolling them. “Oh, I didn’t know it was for your _amusement_. That’s fine, then.”

“Human Magnus is here to get them out,” Eldhaug repeated. “He’s working with the dálki.”

“You keep saying these things like you expect them to make it all right,” she sighed. “Would those be the dálki who are more worried about the people who barged into our homes than about us?” 

“We’ll call you Little Magnus,” said the yellow-eyed creature. She pointed to the woman in rags. “I’m Muggen, and this is Scáthlín. And these are Hedda and Tom. Do you have--”

“He doesn’t have healing magic,” said Eldhaug. “I checked.”

Muggen and Scáthlín stepped aside to show him an injured person lying on the bed in a charcoal grey three-piece suit. The translucent purple face had the large blank eyes and needle teeth of an anglerfish. There was a nasty gash in the scalp, and some watery blood.

“If we don’t get her to the hospital soon, they’ll both die,” Scáthlín fretted.

“Both?” Magnus echoed.

Before he could protest, Muggen had opened the angler-fish-woman’s trousers. She pointed to a small protrusion. “Tom. Her husband. They’ve been together seventeen years.”

“Um,” said Magnus. He did not think he could convincingly call them a lovely couple. “They must be very close.”

Hedda stirred, and the corners of her lipless mouth drew back in a small smile. In a faint, surprisingly gentle voice she said, “That’s the idea.”

After casting around for a moment, Magnus took a pillowcase off one of the spare pillows, folded it into a pad, and pressed it gently to Hedda’s wound. “My friend is in the basement looking for the other humans now. We’ll get them out of here and send help, and then hopefully all of you can get on with your lives.”

“I had a gig tonight,” Muggen said wistfully. “New Year’s Eve at Skygge. If the humans are in the basement, I don’t even know if I even still have drums.”

“The basement?” Scáthlín echoed. “They’re in the basement?”

“Last I saw,” Eldhaug said. “Oh hells. Is Kevin...?”

“Down there,” said Scáthlín, the voids of her eyes wide. To Magnus, she said, “He’s a kobold. Humans slaughtered his entire family.”

“He’s better than he was when I first came here,” said Muggen, “but when he’s in a bad place, he throws on a concealment spell and goes down to the basement.”

“What should I do?” Magnus asked.

“How are your friend’s people skills?” Scáthlín asked.

“Pretty good, I think,” said Magnus.

“Genuinely good, or Wheeee I’m going to be your best friend whether you like me or not and bludgeon you with the force of my positive attitude! good?” 

“The first one,” Magnus assured them.

“Then you have to trust him.”

***

The kid with the flashlight was dark-skinned and wide-eyed. “Ears,” he said shakily. “Let’s see your ears.”

Calle tucked his hair back and showed his ears. “Human,” he said again.

“I’m Sander,” said the boy, turning around and leading him deeper into the basement. They were surrounded by wire mesh storage units. Calle saw, in the dimness, a couple of covered pictures in one, a modified bicycle in another, a set of drums in another. “There were things that came before you,” Sander explained. “They wanted to take us away with them. We almost thought they were human, but their ears were pointy, and they couldn’t get the clothes right.”

“It’s a long story,” said Calle. “I’m here to get you all out of here.”

There was a gasp and a skitter, and something darted between storage cages.

Sander stopped short, pulling his elbows in, shining the light into every corner. “There’s something down here with us.”

Calle nodded, and listened. Breathing, heavy, through a set of vocal cords that were not human vocal cords. “Douse your light,” he murmured, and Sander thumbed it off.

He gave his eyes a moment to readjust to the basement’s low, dirty illumination, and ran his gaze all around the room, looking past the piles of stuff and sheet-covered pieces of furniture. He saw a dark hunched figure against one wall, and his heart leapt to his throat. 

This was it. It was moving ever so slightly, its glistening torso heaving. But when Calle had bitten back his own startled scream, and could pay attention to the noises it was making, his fear eased. He knew that sound: the thing was hyperventilating. 

He stayed where he was, and made his voice gentle and even. “My name is Calle. I’m a human and I don’t mean any harm.”

“You lot never do,” whispered a quaking voice. “And yet somehow there’s no place that’s safe from you.”

“I’m sorry that we’ve intruded. If, in a moment, I take the other humans out of here by the shortest route possible, will that be okay with you?”

“Please. Do.” 

“Is there anything else I can do to help?”

There was a long silence. “No. No. Probably. I just can’t think.”

“All right,” Calle said, and let Sander lead him back to the corner where his friends were huddled.

“Ears,” demanded a muscular white boy with a fur coat and a fake moustache.

“I’ve seen his ears,” Sander said. “That was the first thing I asked him.”

Calle showed his ears. “I’m human.”

“There were other things...”

“I know about them,” Calle said. “I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you.”

They introduced themselves as Sander, Jonas, Mathias, Hanna, and Julie. “They won’t let you leave,” Mathias said, voice shaking. “We shouldn’t have come here and now they’re never going to let us leave.”

“They will,” Calle soothed. “There was a technical error.”

Hanna snorted through her tears. “Technical error?”

“It’s complicated.”

“It’s not,” Jonas said forcefully. “This place is evil and it wants to kill us.”

“It’s always more complicated,” Calle said. 

“Yeah, right up until they eat your face off,” Julie said, rising to her feet, brandishing her bat.

“You don’t need to do that,” Calle said in a low voice.

“Better safe than sorry,” she said.

Hanna needed help getting to her feet, and an arm to lean on. Calle didn’t think her ankle was broken, but it was a bad sprain, and those could be worse sometimes. Slowly, moving together, they made their way to the stairs. Nothing stopped them. Even the noises were softer.

Getting up was going to be a lot easier than descending, but the kids were wary. “How do we know what’s up there?” Jonas demanded. 

“I’ll go up first,” said Julie, hefting the bat. She had to duck to miss the ceiling, and the stairs shivered alarmingly with each step, but she made it up, and opened the door, and peered out. “All clear,” she declared triumphantly.

Behind them, in the shadows, there was a soft gasp, and a skittering. 

“Guys!” Julie held the bat out to Jonas, who had to climb to get it. 

He was halfway up the stairs, so he tried to pass it down to Calle. “Take it, take it!”

“We don’t need it,” said Calle, firmly. 

Mathias took it, looking all around, his face a mask of terror. He hefted the bat, preparing to swing.

Calle turned, Hanna still on his arm, and looked. Hesitantly, three-taloned hands held up in the air, the pale hunched creature lurched forward. 

Calle grabbed the business end of the bat and tugged it away from Mathias, who resisted at first and then let him take it. Calle lowered it, letting the end rest on the ground.

The creature’s voice was like the rush of wind through a cave, edged by tears. “I... I was only going to say you have to take the stairs one person at a time. Even the hurt girl. I’m sorry. They won’t hold two.” It pointed. “Use the bat as a walking stick.”

“Thank you,” Calle said. “That would have been very unpleasant to find out the hard way.”

“We keep telling the landlord,” it said. “One of these days someone’s going to get hurt.”

“Thank you,” Sander said. “And we’re sorry.”

It inclined its moist scaly grey-veined head, and retreated once again into the depths of the basement.

Sander went up next, and then Mathias, and then Hanna, who tried leaning on the bat but found it more expedient to climb up on her knees. Calle brought up the rear. “Lights on or off?” he called into the dimness, from the top of the stairs. 

The voice was very faint. “Off. Thank you.”

The kids were clustered in the kitchen. “Now,” Julie said, eyeing the corridor, “all we have to do is get through _that_ hallway past those other things, and find a way to open the door.”

Above them, a door opened and then closed, and there was a heavy, scrambling tread on the upper stairs. 

Hanna tightened her grip on the bat, lifting it. Julie took it from her and strode forward, getting ready to swing. Calle rushed forward. 

“Whoa!” said Magnus’ voice. Calle looked up. Magnus had reached over the railing and seized the bat on the upswing. “Cinderella?”

Julie looked indignant. “I’m _Harley Quinn_.”

“Citronella,” Calle corrected. “Close enough, though. The important thing is, nobody needs to get hurt here.” 

Magnus finished his descent, went straight to the front door, and knocked the knock they’d been taught. Calle had a feeling that it was the thing that Vegard and Bård called a soundkey, a sequence that would trip a spell even without magic. 

There was no change in the door... except that it became a little bit hard to look at. “I think that’s it,” said Calle. “I’m going first, but it’s going to look weird. Magnus, stay with the kids and bring up the rear.”

“You’re...” Hanna craned her neck at the big man. “...Magnus Devold?”

“I am,” said Magnus. “Pleased to meet you. Calle, tell them they need an ambulance and paramedics upstairs.”

Calle felt around for the boundaries of the portal, his hands sinking into the wood, and eased himself out of the house into a chilly Oslo evening. A few dálki officers rushed forward to greet him. “Did you find them?” demanded Riddari Randiel. 

“They’re coming out,” Calle said. “Maybe keep your distance. They’re a little skittish. And someone upstairs is hurt. One of the residents.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve seen what happens when those kids see us unglamoured,” Randiel said, “so we’re good out here for the moment.”

As the dálki drew away, Calle saw that there were spectators. Two of them to be precise, a small evil clown with dark curls escaping from under a conical cap, and a pantsless white figure in a blue sailor suit, who had on his broad plush shoulders the tousled Kommune-blond head of Bård Ylvisåker. Calle waved--the brothers waved back merrily--and stuck his hand back through the door, beckoning. 

A soft, young hand grabbed his, and Calle, holding his other hand against the top of the portal, ushered Julie through. She got out, stood on the step, took a deep breath, and then ducked back in, sticking her head back through briefly before withdrawing. “Just telling them it’s okay,” she said. 

One by one, Calle helped them out. Hanna was next, then Sander, then Mathias, and Jonas. No Magnus. Calle stuck his head back in. “Magnus?”

He was standing at the bottom of the stairs with his hands in his pockets, and flashed Calle a tight smile. “I don’t want to leave until I know the people up there are looked after.”

“Understood, but I think they want the humans out before they go in.”

“Tell them--” 

But Calle didn’t find out what Magnus wanted him to tell them, because someone was tugging rather urgently on his arm. Calle drew his head out of the portal. A dálki officer whose nametag said Brother Fowler pointed: the evil clown had grabbed Fridtjof Nansen, who was lunging at Bård. “Go into and get Hedda,” Calle told Brother Fowler. “It’s fine.” He gave the officer a pat on the shoulder and hurried down the front steps and took Jonas’ other arm.

Jonas elbowed him weakly in the stomach. “You sadistic douchebags!” he roared. “We could have been hurt! We could have been _killed!_ ”

Vegard was clumsy in his oversized clown shoes, but he managed to restrain Jonas again. “Are you all all right though?” he asked.

“Hanna sprained her ankle because of your bloody prank! She has-- _had_ \--a dance recital next month.”

Bård exchanged a stricken look with Vegard, and Calle got the idea that they were having one of their wordless conversations. 

A big hand fell on the boy’s shoulder. “There is a woman who will have to go to the hospital because of what your friends did to her,” Magnus said, his voice gentle but grave. “No one wanted Hanna to get hurt--no one wanted anyone to get hurt--but before you blame Bård and Vegard, ask yourselves: did anyone say you could come in?”

Jonas turned red. “But... it was right there. You have to expect...”

“Jonas, come _on_ ,” Mathias said from where he stood on the front walk. “They’re right. We shouldn’t have gone in. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize to _us_ ,” Bård said.

“Thank you. And thank you, Calle and Magnus, for making sure we got out safe.”

Hanna hobbled down the walk with one arm over Julie’s shoulder and the other still using the bat as a cane. “Are we going to be on TV?” Julie asked. “Do we have to sign a thing? Don’t you have to ask our parents?”

Bård smiled at her winningly. “You don’t have to worry about us using any of this. You were really hurt and really upset, and none of that is funny.”

Hanna teared up again, then. “How about a hug?” Calle asked her, and she flung her arms around him. Then Magnus hugged her, then Vegard, and Bård. And then Bård called the kids a taxi, because no one was making Hanna walk home. The girls went out on the sidewalk to wait. Sander followed, and drew Jonas along with him. Jonas shot a fierce look at the brothers as he left. 

On the porch, one officer was backing out of the portal, carrying something that looked like a stretcher but didn’t quite move like it. “Emergency pallet,” Vegard explained. Out here, with the Great Glamour working, the injured woman looked like a stocky middle-aged grey-haired woman. Calle had to assume that the plumbers’ van they were loading her into was actually an ambulance.

“That must be Hedda,” Magnus murmured. “I hope she’s going to be all right.”

“We came as soon as we could get away,” Bård said. “Sounds like you handled it pretty well, though.” 

“It wasn’t a prank,” a young voice said. Mathias wasn’t waiting for the cab with the others. He was still standing there with his hands in his pockets, staring at the house. “When Magnus came down the stairs I think it clinched it for the rest of them, but... Ylvis didn’t set that up. I watched the house appear. You _couldn’t_. Humans can’t do that.” 

“Not--” Vegard began, and fell silent with a squeak. Calle had no doubt that Vegard had been about to explain how a human could make a house appear, and Bård had convinced him not to, probably with the tip of a webbed plush toe.

“And I’d wonder why you’re okay pretending to take responsibility and giving us hugs and rides like a sketch just went wrong,” Mathias went on, “but you tried to tell us in the basement, didn’t you, Calle? That the world is more complicated than we thought. We had our chance; we saw the impossible, and we tried to take it out with a baseball bat. So if we go through life thinking it was just another Ylvis prank, that’s probably for the best, right?” 

He looked to Vegard and Bård, who shrugged. “Don’t look at us,” said Bård. “By the time we got here, everything was over.”

Calle said, kindly, “It’s hard to make good decisions when you’re scared.”

“If there’s a next time, you’ll know better,” Magnus said. 

“I’ll try,” said Mathias. “Thanks again for getting us out of there.” A cab was drawing up to the curb now, and he jogged over to where his friends waited. Bård followed, pulling out his wallet as he went, and slipped the driver a card.

***

Magnus was still studying the door of the house when he felt Calle’s eyes on him. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Magnus said absently.

Officer Standhaftig handed them back the bags in which they’d been carrying their costumes. “I imagine you’ll need these for your New Year’s celebrations. Thank you, gentlemen. You’ve done everyone a great service this evening.”

“A pleasure,” said Calle with a touch of gallantry.

“Think nothing of it,” said Magnus. “How long until... until...?”

A handful of officers were clustered around the door again. 

“Until things get back to normal and you have your vacant lot back? Give it another hour. Maybe two.”

“Oh. The others inside, are they going to be stuck there that whole time?”

“I hope not,” she said. “It depends on whether the officers feel like they need to get statements.”

The officers had backed away from the door again, and were watching after something. Magnus only saw because he was looking at it: a slight rippling of the air. From the vicinity of his upper thighs, a voice that he could have easily tuned out said, “Little Magnus! My buddy Klippe says I can use his kit. If I leave now I can still make it.”

Bård watched the sidewalk, grinning. Vegard made a show of craning his neck to look up at Magnus, one eyebrow raised. “ _Little_ Magnus? Also you have a big bruise on your forehead. Did you know that?”

Magnus Devold reached down a hand, palm turned out. He still couldn’t see anything, but he felt the small impact of a high five. “Stay cool,” he thought Muggen’s voice said, but it was blended with the wind and the traffic noises, and she might have been saying “Stay safe” or “Stay out.” Upon reflection, Magnus realized, it didn’t really matter.


End file.
